


love to keep me warm

by wildcard_47



Series: from partridges to pear trees [11]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:04:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: Dual fill: for Day 11 of Carnivale and the prompt "a long winter's night", as well as the kinkmeme prompt for "accidental voyeurism."  On the day the ships depart, James sees something he shouldn't in Terror's Great Cabin.





	love to keep me warm

“Ah, hello – Genge, isn’t it? I hope you are well on this fine day.” As he boarded _H.M.S. Terror_ for only the second time this expedition _,_ Commander James Fitzjames took care to greet _Terror’s_ subordinate steward with care. Although this cheerful greeting was not something a Commander might typically extend to a petty officer, it was a courtesy he wanted to give all of _Terror’s_ men early on in the voyage, so that they might esteem him well, despite not serving on the same ship. “As you may have guessed, I am come to see about Captain Crozier. Sir John bade me bring him over one last time before we set off.”

“Oh!” Genge seemed rather flustered as he glanced around the orlop deck. “It’s – I’m very well, thank you, sir. I don’t think Captain Crozier’s nearby, actually. Haven’t seen him in a bit. Er. Thomas – Jopson, that is – Captain’s steward – would know where he’s got to, sir, but I – I think he may be saying goodbye to his mother and brothers ashore. Let me see if I can find him.”

“No, no, Genge. Think nothing of it,” said Fitzjames in a winning manner, and clapped the lad on the shoulder. “I’ll not keep your Jopson from his family with so little time left till we sail. A note left in the Captain’s quarters should do just fine for now.”

Seeming relieved, Genge departed for the officer’s cabin, while Fitzjames made for _Terror_ ’s Great Cabin.

In truth, he did not know what he expected from this visit.

Certainly he had expected Francis Crozier to be more welcoming to his fellow officers, or perhaps excited to attain the Passage at last. As a leader, the man ought to be out conversing with his crew, and engaging their good regard before sailing, if not their full trust and friendship.

What he did not expect, as he trod the few steps toward the Captain’s berth before coming to an alarmed stop, was the low masculine groan that issued from behind the half-open door, nor the high-pitched, distinctly feminine gasp that accompanied this noise. Nor could he keep himself from directly witnessing the licentious act currently taking place behind said open door.

Here, balanced on top of the Captain’s bunk, with her vibrant yellow skirts rucked up past her thighs and her bare hands curling around the rail, was Miss Sophia Cracroft.

Daring enough that she should linger in a single man’s company with naught so much as a chaperone. Even more shocking that she should sit in clear repose upon that naval officer’s very bed, as her white frilly bloomers dangled open between wantonly spread legs.

Most incredibly of all: kneeling betwixt the lady’s pale, shapely thighs was Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier himself.

Blushed a patchy red all the way to the tips of his ears, still dressed in all but his uniform coat, the Irishman pressed his face to Miss Cracroft’s bare sex with unrestrained eagerness, mounting the sort of strategic offense which might topple even the most experienced forces. And now James watched, completely agape, as Captain Crozier skillfully worked the lady over with lips and tongue and fingers. Her bare belly gleamed bright under the low light of the Preston’s Patent Illuminators, and her normally witty blue eyes were squeezed closed in apparent bliss.

_Good Christ._

Even married couples did not partake in such acts so openly – least, not any of the husbands and wives James knew. These were the sorts of clandestine moments plied to many a desperate john in dark corners, not usually committed with one’s wife or sweetheart. And yet these lovers partook in such things without shame – nor fear of being caught!

Here knelt the normally sour and withdrawn _Terror_ Captain, noted pessimist and utter killjoy, generously pleasuring his _amor_ with such spirit and gusto it could nearly not be believed. And taking such visceral joy in his carnality, with one booted and be-stockinged foot crooked round his back, reclined the eminent Miss Cracroft – an esteemed lady of good connections – currently biting her bottom lip to keep quiet. Her chest heaved in tiny, raptured breaths as Crozier’s free hand wandered up and around her lithe little hips, palming every curve of his lover’s petite body over her remaining clothes.

James was spellbound by it. He could not stop staring.

He could never have expected such audacity from a more surprising source.

“Francis,” Sophia whispered as she clutched fistfuls of the Irishman’s thin ginger hair in both hands, tugging at it, physically guiding him the way one might steer the bridle of a willful horse. “Oh! Please, there. _There._ ”

Was the lady not an expert rider? James vaguely remembered Sir John boasting of his niece’s learned skills at some earlier dinner.

Fingers tightening in Sophia’s voluminous skirts, Crozier’s mouth now opened hot and wet against her most intimate place with a muffled groan. His own body rocked forward and aft in time with the rhythmic movement of her hips; that was when James realized he himself was trembling, and flushed all the way down to his socks, imagining the delightful feelings this passion must be eliciting to coax out such animal noises from them both. Imagining the silken movements of that sharp tongue against needful flesh, circling her innermost sensitive places with wicked lips and – 

_Oh, Good Christ, help me!_

Ashamed of such perfidy, careful to tread quietly as he stepped backwards, James retreated at once, reaching the outer door just as Miss Cracroft reached her apex. Above the soft soprano of her audible delight, James caught Francis’s voice, hoarse and gentled with obvious love and desire –

_Sophia, my darling._

– before he shut the door and went, red-faced and ashamed, in search of Thomas Jopson.

For years, behind every snappish retort and angry, drunken countermand _Terror_ ’s Captain could issue, James saw naught but the picture of tenderness he had witnessed on that fateful day. He spent nights alternately transfixed and infuriated by the contrast between these two moods. To think Francis Crozier was capable of such unsparing kindness and generosity, and such bold passion, and that he should not show nary a whit of it to his Second or to the other men. Would offer them no hand of friendship nor kind regard.

And then, one night in _Erebus’s_ Great Cabin, it all came to a head.

 

##

 

Nearing the tail-end of a bottle of whiskey after a long evening of planning, Francis glanced at James with his usual surliness, and gestured for the crystal decanter.

“Here. I’ll finish us off.”

“No,” said James after a moment, stubborn ire blossoming in his chest. “What if I should want some?”

Francis scowled, but gestured to the cut crystal with a flat-palmed hand. “Take your measure, then. I’ll have the remainder.”

“You shall not, Francis, you are far too spirited as is.”

“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, you absolute idiot. If it’s here, I’ll drink it, so either take your part or leave me to it without complaint.”

Impetuously – on nothing more than a whim and perhaps a spike of ill humour – James reached out, removed the stopper from the bottle, and lifted the entire decanter from the table, drinking deeply of the remaining whiskey without stopping, till a small trickle of it e’en ran past his lips and down his collar.

When he lowered the bottle again, it was empty.

“Fucking hell.” Francis’s blue eyes were wide with alarm as James replaced the bottle on the table, gasping from the shock of the draught. “You – why the blazes did you do that?”

James only shrugged, and swiped traces from his chin and face with the back of his hand. “Whiskey is gone now.”

“I can see that! There was a quarter of a bottle and now it – you’re a lightweight, you goddamned miscreant!”

“I shall have you know I partake in a glass of gin or brandy as part of my evening routine,” said James through a slight hiccup. “Although not every night.”

“I _meant_ that you do not drink the way I do,” Francis insisted, quieter this time. “You aren’t used to it, James.”

“And such vocal concern is noted, Francis, for which I thank you.” At Francis’s raised, very skeptical eyebrow, James could not help but grin. “You often give me that look when you cannot find the words to counter one of my excellent suggestions. I wish you should wear it more often.”

“Jesus God, man,” grumbled Francis, and now hid his face in both hands with a loud groan. “I’ll have to sit here with you till you sober up. For – hours, at least. It's already far too late.”

“Francis, you need do no such thing,” huffed James in reply. “I’m – I’ll be just fine.”

To prove it, he reached for his empty water glass… and the dratted thing tipped over, spilling a single drop of ice melt against their papers.

“Get in the Great Cabin,” huffed Francis with a fierce glare, and shooed James into an upright position, gathering up all their papers under one arm and righting the glass before he pushed in his chair, and guided them both through the door. “Come on.”

 

##

 

“Oh, Lord. Did you realise the inside of the ward – er, the Great Cabin was this slick all the time? ‘S it like that on _Terror?_ ”

“Why? Have you slipped on an ice patch again?”

“No, I have not.” James gave his First a very cutting glare. “These boots’re too good to do that t’me. Got the name out’ve the _Gentleman’s Gazette_ , you know. Jennings has _such_ a selection of leather as you have never seen.”

“Indeed I did not.”

“Good God! Have you never gone?!”  
  
Francis gestured toward his feet with one hand. Being so directed, James espied the usual weatherbeaten boots on the _Terror_ Captain’s feet with interest.

“Got these a couple of years after we set off with Ross. Bought them off the purser. Why should I need others?”

James’s mouth fell open. “Since you – oh, good God, man! That was near a decade ago, surely!”

Francis just shrugged. “Seems it must be.”

“But you’re a _Captain_. How’re you s’posed to look fearsome and pretty if you don’t have good boots?”

“Not all of us can spend our entire sum of half pay on something so idiotic as clothes.” Francis made a displeased face after he said this, then cleared his throat. “Though I have never once attempted to _look pretty_ , at any rate.”

“Idi – oh, do not sound so aggrieved, man! You could do. An’ if I’d known it had been so long since you’d had new boots, I’d have got you a pair of your own in Greenhithe.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. That is the stupidest suggestion I have ever heard.”

“Why? I should be happy to see you in a nicely-blacked boot. High-topped like the newest fashions. Do you not then esteem mine? Your legs would appear very fine indeed in such a style, I am certain of it.”

“You are likely the only person who has ever said so.”

“Perhaps to your face. ‘Stead of only whispering in corners.” With a soft sigh, James sat up and glanced around. “Hm. Are you hungry? I should so like a little nosh. Bridgens!”

“No, James, do not call – ”

The _Erebus_ steward opened the door to the Great Cabin, first seeming blandly genial and then rather puzzled, as his gaze drifted from James’s face to the man behind him.

“Captain – Crozier?”

“‘Tis indeed he! Bridgens, is it not incredible that my fellow Captain has joined us here on _Erebus_ tonight?”

“What is most incredible is the volume of whiskey you have consumed entire,” came a facetious voice from the other end of the Captain’s table.

“Shush, Francis.” James drew himself up tall, opened his mouth to speak again, then faltered. “Oh, dear. Bridgens, I have quite forgot what I called you for.”

“Some water, I think,” said the old steward after a moment.

“Capital idea. We are in dire need of refreshment.”

“And I’ll see if I can fetch you a hot biscuit or two. You may yet need those, as well.”

“Even better!” James turned, gave Francis a delighted look. “Bridgens' omnipotence is astounding. I confess I do not know how your Jopson could do any better.”

“Then you do not know Thomas Jopson,” said Francis with a slight smile, before his eyes flicked to the steward. “No offense intended, Bridgens.”

“None taken, sir,” said the steward, and departed.

 

##

 

“Joyful and triumphant! O come ye, o come ye to Beeeeeeth – ”

_“Fitzjames.”_

“Oh, tosh, Francis! Will you not sing with me?”

“As it is not yet Christmas, and I am not one of the Bible Boys: no.”

“Bible Boys?” Spreadeagled on the floor in his coat and boots, reclining atop a frozen blanket, James raised his head. “Who’re they?”

“Ah. It’s – Irving, Hodgson. Few others on _Terror_. All they ever do is read the bloody Scriptures. Get the piss taken out of them for it. Hence the name.”

“What a dreadfully boring limitation on one’s reading habits,” said James after a few moments. “Surely they have further hobbies to occupy their minds?”

Francis actually had to cover his mouth to keep a small laugh from escaping. “Watercolors.”

“Oh!” James sat fully upright, a manic light in his eyes. “Francis…”

_“No.”_

 

##

 

“Ha – have you e’er been in a panto?” Now pacing aimlessly around the Captain’s table, James stumbled into the corner, laughed at such reckless folly, and steadied himself with one hand on the surface before listing into the far wall of bookshelves.

“Never,” said Francis dryly. “Here – you really ought to come and sit – ”

“I so wanted to when I was a boy.” James sighed loudly, and decided sitting down in the floor was far better than standing. “Up on one of the stages. No one would have me.”

“James, I am quite sure some unfortunate person must have spotted your budding flair for the dramatic at that age, e’en at three hundred paces.”

“Ha! You’d be _so_ wrong, Francis. Not body – er. None – they didn’t e’en want me. ‘S why I went to sea.”

“What are you talking about now?”

But Francis’s voice, far from vexed, had a grudgingly fond note to it. Or at least he’d stopped sounding so bloody snappish.

“Oh, you dunno. How could y’know.” James slumped backwards against the lower part of the shelves, delighting in the way the rest of the room spun above him. Felt nice now, like waltzing in a ballroom instead of being completely sickening. He hadn’t sicked up in ages. “You’ve a family. Friends. People who – well. Should’ve loved you. Goddamned stupid not to.”

“James.” And Francis actually got up from his chair, plunked down next to him. He seemed fairly concerned. “Tell me what you mean.”

“‘M awful,” sighed James, and listed sideways into Francis’s lap, curling up here with a soft whine. “‘S all.”

“You aren’t making sense. And will you sit up straight, you lunatic!”

“‘S not the drink.” James reached out, clapped Francis’s left leg with one hand. “‘M a fraud, an’ nobody’ll have me, an’ that’s fine. ‘S fine. But you – all that goddamn _passion._ ” He let out a sigh. “S'phia should’ve _fought_ for you, Francis – Sir John be damned.” A hiccup. “God rest his soul.”

“Sophia,” Francis echoed, after several long seconds. “You’re indignant about – her lack of regard? On my behalf?”

“Yes, ‘cos is a damned shame.” James let out another sigh. “Christ, y’were so tender when she came to you on _Terror_. I didn’t lo – ” he groaned, shielded his eyes from view, “ –  _goddamn_ , all right, I saw it, jus’ didn’t – linger. Didn’t mean t’see. Sir John said t’get you an’ Jopson wasn’t round an’ I – y’were so _goddamn_ _beautiful, Francis._ How well you loved her. Think about it all the time. How gorgeous you looked. An’ all the passion you’re jus’ – hiding. Why don’t y’show it t’the bloody world, man?”  
  
“I – ” and Francis’s body had gone so taut he now shook slightly, his voice perilously crisp, “ – you _–_ that was –  _private._ ”

“Jus’ more to hate, I s’pose,” mumbled James. “Y’already hate me.”

“No, this bloody well is not about – hating or not hating you. Jesus Christ. You know why this should so enrage me!”

“I know.”

“And you’re only trying to escape being shouted at by acting so – so – ”

“Pathetic.”

“Precisely. And, may I add, while I may be well and fucking furious with this goddamned ridiculousness, I will have you know I never hated you! Even now, when all you mean to do is roust my thrice-damned temper!”

“I did not mean to intrude.” James made a soft frustrated noise against Francis’s trouser leg, and said nothing for several seconds. “‘M so very sorry, Francis. Truly.”

“Makes two of us,” came the eventual, very flat reply.

“God. Why’d she scorn you after all that? ‘S awfully cruel.”

“I don’t know why.” A sigh. “Well. Not entirely accurate. Suffice to say her reasons were not mine.”

”Hmph. That’s – y’know what I think? ‘S _brave_ of you to love her so well.”

“Now you’re being absurd.”

“No. Y’wanted her so badly y’just – damned the consequences. How I envy that. Nobody’s ever wanted me that much. E’en my own blood.”

“That – I’m sure that’s not true, James.” A slight scoff. “You’ve always been – popular.”

“‘Tis true. An’ popularity’s worthless ‘cause ‘s empty, everyone _knows_ that much.” Another scoff; he blew a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Doesn’t mean a damn in the end.”

Silence.

“Augh. ‘M already marked, anyway,” James groaned again, fingers curling into the fabric of Francis’s trousers. _“Out, damned spot._ Jus’ – toss me aside already. Meant t’be ‘lone. ‘S fine. Least here there’s not questions.”

A sudden prod at his shoulder. “James, stop.”

“No. Nobody wants me an’ you’re my First, s’you should know.”

“Stop it,” Francis insisted again. One hesitant hand came to rest between his shoulder blades; James startled and then sagged into the quiet little touch. “You are _not_ alone here, James.”

“Hmph. Says you.”

“Yes, I am saying it. And do you understand?”

“Jus’ strike me for my crime an’ be done with it. I’ll not fight you. Here.”

And James rolled over onto his back, so he was facing Francis. The _Terror_ Captain’s hand still graced his shoulder, now closer to his clavicle than anything else. James tried vainly to move it, but only succeeded in grasping Francis’s left elbow.

“Go on.”

“Stop.” Francis batted James’s raised hand away. “Put your arm down, you idiot.”

“C’mon! ‘S easy. E’en with an open palm.”

“I will not be baited into such a thing.”

“Baited? Surely we – oh, your throat’s gone all red.” A small pause. “You’re blushing.”

“I am _not_ ,” hissed the Irishman. “You are bothering the dickens out of me is all. And stop – bloody – staring at my neck.”

“So you’ll really not strike me? _Francis._ ”

“I’ll not be prodded into a useless dogfight by the most lightweight sailor in the Arctic, no.”

“‘S too bad.” James heaved out a breath, and his eyes fluttered slightly, so that Francis’s stout form was now surrounded by a slight haze. He was tired of propping up his arm, and so he let the back of his palm fall against Francis’s chest. “S pretty when you blush. See? You can look it. I was very correct earlier. Bout the – combs. Or was that waistcoats?”

Carefully, Francis guided James’s hand back down to the floor, and smoothed a stray piece of hair away from his nose.

“Sleep, James. I’ll have Bridgens bring you a headache powder in the morning.”

Exhausted, unsure if they had genuinely had a productive conversation or if he had just dreamt it, James nodded mutely and closed his eyes a second time, allowing the deep darkness of the drink to reel him into heavy slumber.

 

##

 

“God in heaven, Francis. I am so terribly sorry.”

When next James appeared in front of Captain Francis Crozier, his head was positively splitting and he was certain he would never eat another morsel of food again. Even Bridgens’ headache powder had not helped very much, and that was mainly because James had sicked up all that remained of the whiskey in the early hours, prior to nursing a ginger ale in his quarters just after four bells, like the most fretful old widow in a boarding house.

“Ah.” Francis did not seem surprised by James’s apologetic appearance. “Well. How do you fare, then?”

“Damnable,” sighed James, and slowly took a seat at the Captain’s table, then gave up on all attempts at propriety and put his head down on the surface. “Utterly, utterly wretched.”

“Do you, er. Recall very much, then?”

Groaning, James thought back – he recalled lying bonelessly on the frozen floor like the most inebriated ship’s boy; slumping against the bookshelves; pacing and possibly prancing around the table as he – oh, no.

“Did I tell you I wanted to – to be on the stage?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Dear God. “And – something about buying you – boots?”

“You may have actually visited Mr. Fowler or Osmar about that in the night,” said Francis with a loud sigh. “I’m still not quite sure.”

“Good Christ. I knew I’d humiliated myself beyond all repair. You must utterly despise me now.”

A short silence. When James finally dared to glance up, Francis’s normally snide visage was as soft as James had ever seen it.

“No spite here,” was all Francis said, and cleared his throat. “Just damned annoyance, as per usual. If that’s acceptable.”

Stunned, and more than a little pleased at such surprising charity, James felt relieved for the first time all morning.

“Oh. No, no. That’s – er – fine. All well and good.” He winced as the ague hit him anew, and a searing pain split his skull.  “Except my head, perhaps. Oh, Good Lord.”

“Jopson,” Francis called quietly.

In the doorway, the steward appeared as if by magic. “Sir?”

“Captain Fitzjames is in need of a headache powder and some water.”

“Oh! Yes, of course, sir. I’ll fetch it directly.”

Before James could counter this command or protest his own obvious feebleness, Jopson disappeared.

“Let us hope,” began Francis in a rather amused voice, “that Jopson will soon become as omnipotent as John Bridgens in this trying time.”

Groaning as he recalled yet another idiotic thing he had done whilst in the grip of the drink, Fitzjames gave up on propriety entire, and put his head back down on the table.

**Author's Note:**

> This one feels like a hot mess to me, but I hope y'all enjoy it anyway!


End file.
